


Ascendant

by Forestwater



Series: The Creatively-Titled Camp Camp AU Collection [7]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: AU where Daniel never went to any camps and isn't wanted by the police, I'm Bad At Titles, I'm also bad at summaries, Kevin is a very good bad dad, M/M, also much more Flower Scouts love than anticipated, because it's hard to make Daniel lovable, fuck it, he's an innocent(ish) snowflake, i know you're not supposed to say that but look at that thing, in which Forest is terrible at writing these kids in character, it's terrible, much more Daniel backstory than anticipated, not as shippy as you're expecting, shit also gets kinda druggy, shit gets culty, there's a slight age difference but I've decided Kevin isn't more than 5-7 years older than Daniel, this is a bad title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-04-17 22:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14199261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forestwater/pseuds/Forestwater
Summary: When Dirty Kevin takes the fall for the Flower Scouts' cookie empire, he's forced into a rehab program run by a bunch of shiny happy do-gooders. It isn't until he finds himself with a very reluctant admirer that he starts to suspect they aren't very good at all . . .





	1. It's like AA, or something

**Author's Note:**

> Part of an art trade for the incomparable [Doritofalls,](http://doritofalls.tumblr.com) who likely [created Kevdan and sent us all to shipping hell.](http://doritofalls.tumblr.com/post/164639447791/geez-dan-buy-a-guy-a-drink-first-will-you)

It was literally just because the AA meetings were on the other side of town. That, and some clean-cut woman in a cute sundress had handed him a flyer.

Dirty Kevin wasn’t trying to turn his life around, not exactly. Sure, there were those girls to think about – especially that spitfire with the eyepatch; she worried him sometimes – but they were smart kids. Meth-cookies aside, he knew they’d never do something dumb like drop out of school to chase a pipe dream of marijuana farming and folk singing, despite having only a faint idea of how to do either. Not that he was complaining; he was getting pretty good at the banjo, if he did say so himself. At the very least, his next-door neighbor had stopped threatening to break it over his head. (Thank goodness – Dirty Kevin considered himself pretty tough, but Bonquisha was one of the few people who scared the bejesus out of him. Her, and that little eyepatch girl.)

Besides, he didn’t believe in regrets.

Didn’t believe in much of anything, really.

But he’d gotten in a little bit of trouble over a minor infraction – okay, a major infraction. Somehow he’d ended up taking the fall for those cookies, even though they weren’t his idea – and thanks to the legal wizardry of one of his local clients, Kevin had ended up avoiding jail time as long as he performed a hundred hours of community service and got himself checked into a “rehabilitation program.”

Well, what was he, the fucking queen of England? Was he supposed to hop a bus to the nearest town with a decent facility? Take a nice six-month detox vacation? Nope, nope, and not gonna happen. Who’d watch his cat, anyway? She’d eat his supply if he left her alone for too long and he was  _not_  cleaning that mess up again.

So he had to work with the resources he had.

He was pretty good at that.

Kevin unfolded the flyer, double-checking the address with the pearl-colored one-story building in front of him.  _“Clear out the toxicity in your life! Leave your past behind and ascend to a new you!”_  Next to this was a group of young men and women, all with bright eyes and brighter smiles, all dressed in white polos that could’ve been a uniform, he supposed, except he couldn’t see any logo. Some sort of New-Age-y bullshit, he figured.

Whatever. It was just for two months, and then he’d be done with his court-mandated therapy and ready to get back to work. As long as they didn’t make him cover his trailer in crystals he’d be fine.

“Hello?”

Dirty Kevin jerked back, startled by the ghostlike figure who’d popped into view as soon as the heavy oak doors closed behind him. The room was small, neat, and poorly lit, the gloom a shock after the brilliant exterior; the windows were covered with thick drapes and only a faint glow of sunlight caught fire on the man’s clothes and hair. “Uhhhh … I’m not sure I’m in the right place.”

A smile flashed through the dimness, so white it was almost blue. “I think you are! And just in time.” Before Kevin could say anything, a pale shape darted toward him, long fingers looking skeletal – but were soft, almost unnervingly so – as they wrapped around his wrist. “Come on, it’s going to be a long evening!”

He paused, seriously considering shaking this weirdo off and just taking the damn bus to the AA meetings. But if he did that, he’d have to cut short his weekly afternoons with the Flower Scouts, and then they’d wonder why, and knowing them they might do something stupid like try to follow him and it’d just be more trouble than it was worth. (Besides, the girls had Spa Days twice a month. Spa days were good for Dirty Kevin’s skin.)

With a sigh, he let the man lead him down a hallway the exact color and texture of an eggshell. At the end was a doorless room with several uncomfortable-looking couches arranged in more or less a circle, where five other people were waiting. They were, of course, all dressed in white. He resolved immediately to wear nothing but black to these meetings. He didn’t want any part of this weird Polyphonic Spree bullshit.

“A visitor,” his captor announced cheerfully – and okay, maybe that wasn’t the best way to refer to the poor kid, but his hand was still around Kevin’s wrist and the powder-dry softness of his skin was starting to get unnerving – putting one hand between Kevin’s shoulder blades and gently ushering him forward, into the circle.

He paused, trying to figure out which of these freaks he was supposed to make eye contact with (though he’d really prefer to just keep staring at the cream-colored carpet; it didn’t smile creepily at him). His wrist was finally free, but he could still feel the firm warm weight of the stranger’s hand between his shoulder blades, and something about it felt strangely admonishing, like he was a badly-behaved child instead of a … whatever he was. Not a new member, he sure as hell hoped. A temporary interloper?

A gentle hum drew his attention to a young woman – old woman? She had one of those faces that could be any age between 25 and 60 – with long white hair piled on top of her head and falling over her shoulders. She nodded at them and the hand left Kevin’s back, leaving him alone with the polite-but-distant gaze of this woman. She studied him with a strangely emotionless half-smile that made him clench his hands into fists at his side, digging his nails into his palms to keep from visibly squirming under her heavy silent assessment.

“We’re so pleased to have you,” she finally said, holding out her hand without rising so that he had to shuffle forward to shake it. She kept her fingers closed around his for just a few seconds too long, eyes earnest and searching for something,  _something_  –

He looked away, clearing his throat and scuffing his heel against the carpet.

“I believe you have a great deal of negativity in your life,” she continued, letting his hand and gaze fall away from hers. “It’s so difficult not to get mired in the toxic sludge of this world, isn’t it?” He shrugged, not sure how to respond or even if that required a response, and she continued smoothly (so good, it hadn’t). “But it’s okay now. That part of your life is over. We can help you transcend those negative influences and find real peace. Is that what you want?”

“Uh.” The complete stillness of the rest of the circle was starting to seriously freak him out; he was very close to bolting out of this fucking tomb of a building, with its gloom and its ghostly inhabitants. The air felt dead, thick with dust and silence and graveness, it made his skin prickle like he was being watched by more than just this little group of weirdos like there was something bigger and darker and more powerful, not  _human_  – “So … you guys are like some Christian group or something?”

Because there was definitely  _something_ , the kind of whole-bodied belief that could cause miracles and lynchings; the belief was like another person in the room, like a heavy blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

She smiled, a gentle, slightly condescending thing that scared the shit out of him. “Not quite. We’re something a bit more special. More –”

Her smile sharpened, and with it the creeping oppressive  _wrongness_  draped over the room.

“–  _tangible_.”

She gestured for him to take a seat, and the man who’d brought him in patted welcomingly at the chair next to him. And maybe it was only compared to the weirdness of everything else, but his smile seemed just a tiny bit more comforting than freaky this time.

The smile convinced him.

He took a seat.


	2. Conversation & cookies

The meeting was actually pretty boring, after those first terrifying moments. Lots of sharing stories, or what the lady called “testimonies,” about basically nothing but everyone pretended held some deep inner meaning; lots of talk about emotions; a couple weird comments about space, but for the most part it seemed like a fairly standard touchy-feely group. The eerie feeling fell away with every minute of dull conversation, and the darkness of the room stopped feeling spooky and eventually seemed … almost cozy. Like when the kindergarten teacher would draw the curtains for naptime.

(God, he missed sleep. He couldn’t quite remember the last time his mind had stopped racing enough to let him really get through the entire night.)

“What’d you think?” his new friend —  _Daniel_ , right, this one was Daniel, not to be confused with Ezekiel or Zachariah or the leader of this group, Sister Hannah; he wasn’t a scholar but he vaguely remembered those names all coming up in Sunday school, making him wonder once again exactly what religion he’d stumbled into — asked, settling into an easy loping pace alongside Kevin as he slipped back out into the blinding sunlight.

“Was … y'know, interesting,” he replied absently, pulling his hood up to block the glare. Had it been this bright earlier in the day? How had he survived? “Are you new to this whole thing too?”

Daniel replied with a soft laugh; Kevin couldn’t look over at him, not until his eyes adjusted, but the laugh felt just the tiniest bit chilly, mechanical. “Oh, not at all! We haven’t had a visitor in months. Everyone here is an old-timer,” he added, a loving mockery in his tone at those last words. “My mother was one of the original members.”

Dirty Kevin had enough manners to know it’d be rude to ask how the woman had died (because she clearly had; even if he couldn’t have read it in the wistful lilt of his voice, he’d known because  _of fucking course_  she was, how else would a twenty-something kid end up spending his afternoons with a bunch of religious whackjobs?) Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough manners to know how to politely change the subject, so he just kept walking, wondering if this kid would follow him home.

_Kid? You could’ve graduated high school with him!_

It was true — especially since high school for Kevin had been spent in a haze of pot smoke — but there was something about Daniel’s wide-eyed cheeriness that made him seem so much younger. Didn’t help that he looked like his grandmother dressed him, or that he was even skinnier than the Flower Scouts, or that his hair had that platinum shine that kids usually outgrew once they stopped spending all day running around outdoors — not that this Daniel guy seemed like he did much outdoors, not in that outfit or with that porcelain-pale skin.

He found himself quietly wondering if the guy would burn, then shook himself. Those girls were making him go all  _maternal_. “Good for you, I guess?”

“It sure is!” Daniel replied cheerfully. “There’s nothing better!”

“Right …” Dirty Kevin was starting to think it was time to gently extricate himself from this conversation. “So I should get going. Got, uh … cookies to bake …”

“Really? You didn’t strike me as the baking type.” Was it Kevin’s imagination or did Daniel’s voice have just the tiniest hint of condescension? “I’d love to try your cookies sometime.”

And no, he wasn’t imagining it: underneath that “golly gee whiz” attitude was a little disingenuous bite.

He fucking  _knew_  that whole friendly thing was an act. No one was that happy to see him unless they were suffering some serious withdrawals. And someone who looked like they’d walked straight out of their First Communion? This was some extracurricular conversion bullshit if he’d ever seen it.

The smart thing to do would be to say thanks but no thanks. The smarter thing to do would be to say, “sure, sounds great” and then never go back to those meetings. Kevin knew when he was being played, and this Daniel wasn’t as good at lying as he seemed to think.

Dirty Kevin was no idiot. He wasn’t a genius or anything, but he was smart enough not to get caught (as long as he didn’t get caught up with some big-eyed kiddos aiming to start a drug empire). He was shrewd. He wasn’t the type to get played.

He shrugged and jerked his head in the direction of his trailer. “Y’wanna help? Might get your fancy clothes dirty but …”

Daniel laughed, lighter and genuine this time — and maybe Kevin was imagining that, but he didn’t have much of an imagination and a good track record of spotting bullshit — and fell into step beside him.

* * *

Those girls had really hit on something special with these cookies.

“Nonono,” Daniel said, shaking his head; his hair was mussed and streaked with flour and there was a splotch of frosting on his cheek, “we don’t  _worship_ Xemüg! The Circle just acknowledges His contributions to the creation of the universe! We are fully on the side of the Galactic Confederacy, led by the Ancient Ones.”

“Riiight.” Kevin rolled onto his side, frowning at Daniel. “And nobody knows anything about this confederation because …”

“Because the Ancient Ones have found us wanting! That’s why we must reach ascension, to be worthy of joining the Confederacy!”

None of this had come up in the meeting, which was probably good thinking on Sister Hannah’s part. “So you do some bullshit to clear out your toxins or whatever —”

“— purging ourselves the negative emotions unleashed into our atmosphere from the conflict with Xemüg, yes —”

“— and then, what? You’re part of the Cool Alien Club? What’s the point? Do they have cool jackets or something?”

Daniel groaned, snagging a cookie and gesturing at him. “The  _point_  is that you will  _ascend!_  Be freed of all negativity and unlock the secrets of the universe! Isn’t that  _enough?”_

Kevin closed his eyes as Daniel waved the cookie at him, feeling the gentle spray of crumbs pepper his cheeks and forehead. “But why?”

He sat up with a sigh of exasperation, running a hand through his hair and making it even messier. “Why  _what?!”_

“Why bother with all this — purification and sitting in dark rooms and dressing like a bleached Tiger Woods? I’ve got all the secrets of the universe right here if you want ‘em.”

“This?” He snorted, looking around, and flopped down onto his back. (He hadn’t seemed very impressed when they’d first entered the little trailer, but had been several cookies ago and Daniel’s ability to fake politeness had chipped away with every baked good.) “You can’t seriously tell me you’re happy living like this.”

“Hey, I make good money when  _certain_  religious weirdos don’t eat my entire supply.” When Daniel didn’t reply, focusing instead with laserlike intensity on the frosted cookie he held straight up over his face, Kevin sighed. “Listen, this isn’t ideal, I get that —”

Another dismissive snort from Daniel.  _“Obviously.”_

“— but it’s  _real_. All your aliens and emotions and all that? It’s not as real as …” He snagged up a cookie and tossed it in Daniel’s direction. “As this. That cookie is a  _fact_ , not some sci-fi fairytale bullshit.”

“Facts are overrated. They can be manipulated just as easily as feelings, but people trust them blindly. It’s really very simple, Kevin; even  _you_  should be able to follow this.”

It occurred to him that if he charged Daniel for every cookie they’d eaten, it might be enough to bribe the judge into letting him off the hook with this whole rehab thing. He’d never have to hear another word about toxins or galactic whatevers.

Daniel tried to stand and wobbled, grappling at the couch to stay upright. He growled, shooting Kevin a glare and a muttered  _“shut up”_  before carefully making his way to the bathroom. Kevin watched him go, smirking. He snagged his phone and texted April, telling her he wouldn’t be selling anything to the Muffin Tops’ girls after the show tonight.

Eh, the kid probably didn’t have the money anyway.


	3. The Confederacy

It took about a month for the meetings to start reaching Daniel-levels of weirdness.

If he hadn’t been prepared for it by several afternoons of a stoned-off-his-ass Daniel trying to explain the convoluted mechanics of Xemüg and ascension, Kevin probably would’ve been significantly more creeped out. As it was, he sighed and settled back into his chair, watching Sister Hannah patiently walk another hapless “addict” (despite occasionally sampling his own supply, Dirty Kevin wasn’t addicted to anything except money,  _thank you very much_ ) through the Millennia Wars.

She was good, he had to admit. Much better than Daniel, with his short temper and wild eyes; she sat calmly and treated each question with the same gentle condescension and smooth answers that almost —  _almost_  — seemed plausible. Without the familiar boiling heat of his trailer and the grounding presence of Barbra nuzzling his hand with her little furry face, trying to get cookies, it … was a little harder to smirk at bullshit like Xemüg.

It was still bullshit, of course. Just a more …  _reasonable_ -sounding bullshit. A “you shouldn’t mock other people’s beliefs” kind of bullshit. A bullshit he could see catching on beyond this merry band of chalky freaks.

Speaking of … He glanced over at Daniel, who no longer sat next to him but across the room, to the right of Sister Hannah. He’d been avoiding Kevin’s eyes for most of the meeting — or so it felt — but right then his gaze was heavy, thoughtful.

There were times when Kevin forgot — when his trailer was thick with smoke and the smell of frosting and it seemed almost like high school, like two kids giddy with the thrill of breaking the law – when he forgot that Daniel was on a mission. That he was only there to convert Kevin.

Something about the weight of his gaze in that moment jolted him back to reality; he looked away, slouching down in the chair and wrapping his hoodie more firmly around himself.

Fuck being an  _extracurricular activity_.

* * *

“So what happens when people get …” Kevin waved his hand vaguely, nonchalantly, at complete odds with the dread coiling sick and tight in his stomach. “Ascended?”

Daniel sat up, his brow furrowing. “What d’you mean?”

“Like, where do they  _go_  if you never see them again?”

He shrugged, looking irritated. “Wherever Sister Hannah sends them, I guess. What does it matter where they go? Ascension is the most important part of life; what happens next is irrelevant.”

“You’re not even a little bit curious about what’ll happen after you graduate from cult school?” As a matter of fact – “Why haven’t  _you_  ‘ascended’ yet, anyway?”

“Sister Hannah says not everyone is called to ascension immediately. Some of us have to hold on to our impurities for a little while longer.” He spoke immediately, with the quick eloquence of an oft-repeated recitation; Dirty Kevin would bet his entire trailer that those were the exact words Sister Hannah used, and that a younger version of Daniel had rolled them over so many times in his head that they came out perfectly rehearsed.

 _A good little trained monkey_ , he thought, his lip curling. At times like this he almost felt sorry for the poor bastard. “That’s a pretty-sounding mouthful of bullshit. What makes you so lucky, then?”

“She – Sister Hannah saw it in a vision,” Daniel replied, his voice holding just the tiniest waver. “She and I have been … selected.”

“Nothing like being told you’re special, huh?” Good to know even cult-schools handed out participation trophies. He rolled onto his side, thinking about reaching for another cookie before deciding against it. “You two are supposed to stick around spreading the gospel.”

Daniel lifted his chin. “ _Exactly_. And after this season’s Ascension Party, I’ll have proven myself worthy of setting out on my own.”

Kevin had heard a great deal about the Ascension Party – a clinical, academic version from Sister Hannah that focused on their progress and accomplishments, and a much more starry-eyed and drug-addled version from the man sprawled across the floor.

_The culmination of your efforts. A celebration of your achievements this season and a testament to your bravery and strength._

_The moment you reject all negativity from your life and are made immune from toxins so that you can join the Galactic army! You’ll become an immortal being like the Ancient Ones and Xemüg and will get to participate in their endless battle!_

Two very different images. But both had the same refrain:

_No one from your old life will ever see you again._

Of course, he knew what that was  _supposed_  to mean: that this version of themselves, racked with addiction and all dissatisfied and shit, would be abandoned and their friends and loved ones would be greeted with the  _new_ , better, Ascended model. And Dirty Kevin tried not to succumb to paranoia; he’d seen it happen more than once to his friends from high school, and the only thing keeping him from donning a tinfoil hat and seeking out his old pal Rusty’s cardboard box was a firm grip on reality.

It just … left him with a bad feeling, the way they talked about Ascension like it was the final stop on the great bus ride of life. Made him itchy and restless.

Preoccupied with these thoughts, it took Kevin a moment to register what Daniel had said. “Where will you go?”

Daniel shrugged, probably convinced he came off a lot more cool and composed than he looked. (Like Kevin couldn’t see the pleased flush blooming fresh under the already-pink cookie-glow on his face and neck, or the way his superior smirk kept trying to dissolve into a grin no less smug but a lot less dignified.) “Sister Hannah hasn’t decided for sure, but she’s impressed with the roots I’ve laid in this town.” He was almost positive those roots extended no farther than the edges of this tin box they were sitting in, but he didn’t argue, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.

It wasn’t Dirty Kevin’s fault that Daniel was pretty cute when he got all self-satisfied.

“I think she’ll send me to one of the camps around the lake, though. Once I prove to her and the other Elders that I can handle the responsibility, of course.”

That was the first Kevin had ever heard of any Elders. Seemed like this cult had about three people in it. “The other  _who?”_

Daniel looked surprised. “Like Sister Hannah. They’re in charge of flocks all over – but they’ll be at our Ascension Party to induct me into their ranks.”

Kevin smirked. “Aren’t you a little young to be anyone’s  _elder?”_

He huffed, turning a darker red and frowning out the window. “It’s about emotional maturity, Kevin. Maybe someday you’ll find some.”

“Aww, I’m sorry,” he said, unable to stop grinning. “Please don’t be mad at me, Danny. Or should I start calling you Brother Daniel?” He leaned forward, hoping to catch Daniel’s eye. “Or maybe I can call you daddy?”

“I’m leaving,” he snapped, storming out of the trailer. He paused in the doorway, opening his mouth like he was going to leave one last cutting remark, then frowned and slammed the door.

_Must not have been able to think of anything._


	4. La Veta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (In which I rip of [setepenre-set](https://archiveofourown.org/users/setepenre_set/pseuds/setepenre_set)’s style so much I have to credit it)

“Sister Hannah doesn’t think you’re ready for ascension.”

“And here I thought we were getting close,” Kevin said dryly, keeping his focus on his “garden.” He’d been letting this part of his supply grow thin; Daniel didn’t enjoy the outdoors, and his visits had increased until he appeared at Kevin’s trailer almost every day. But he’d be damned if he let court-mandated bonding fuck up his business.

Daniel leaned against the side of the trailer, springing upright with a pained hiss as his skin met the sun-baked metal. “She thinks you have too much negativity in your system. It’s clouding your mind with doubts.”

Kevin frowned, glancing up from the plant he was tending. “Isn’t that what ascension is supposed to do? Clear out all that shit so I can be a good little cultist?”

“Don’t say that,” he snapped, his expression darkening. “She’s right — you’re so swamped with toxins, the Confederacy would never accept you.”

Kevin was surprised to find that … actually hurt, a little. Not that he gave a damn what Daniel’s  _Ancient Ones_  thought, but — “Hey, fuck you. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Daniel scoffed, crossing his arms and looking away. “Please. You have so many impurities it’s disgusting. You’re  _tainted.”_

“Thank fuck for that,” Kevin said, standing. He headed back toward his trailer, letting his shoulder knock into Daniel’s roughly. “What’re you doing wasting your time here, then, if I’m not gonna be invited to the party?” He smirked, even though the knot in his stomach was anything but funny. “Are you  _breaking up_  with me?”

Daniel didn’t answer. Kevin glanced back to see him standing in the same spot by the garden, looking shiny and lost and exposed without the safety of drawn curtains and soft lamplight.

A wave of —  _something_ — washed over him, hot and cold and strangely feverish. “How long have you known I’m not going to ascend?”

Exactly how long had Daniel been told he was a lost cause and kept coming here anyway? (Hell, he probably didn’t even need to be told; no one could possibly expect someone known as  _Dirty Kevin_  to fit into a world of cleanliness and purity.)

How much did Sister Hannah even  _know_ about this?

Daniel’s mouth worked, angry red blotches flaring up along his cheeks and neck. “What are you talking about?”

Kevin paused in the doorway. “Are you coming in? Or do you have a party to plan?”

After a moment, Daniel followed him into the trailer and took his usual seat on Kevin’s couch, crossing his arms and legs like a very displeased, pale Twizzler.

Kevin settled down at his only table, snagging a tote bag from under the sink and emptying it in front of him; dozens of orange prescription bottles rolled over the pocked wood surface. “To be honest I’m kinda glad to be left out,” he said conversationally, picking through the bottles and sorting them. “You probably are too, huh?”

Daniel had been watching his work curiously, but when Kevin glanced up at him his eyes immediately darted away. “Someday you’re going to say something that makes sense,” he muttered, his voice a sullen growl, “and I’m pretty sure the shock of it would kill Xemüg Himself.”

Kevin was surprised into a laugh. God, what an asshole. “It’d probably make more sense if you were fucked up,” he said with a grin, shaking one of the pill bottles like maracas. “What d’ya say, wanna try some good old-fashioned Earth toxins?”

Daniel ignored him, frowning at Barbra; her ears flattened against her head and she hissed. It was her standard response to Daniel, which Kevin thought proved she had excellent judgement of character.

“But seriously, ascending means you basically lose everything negative, right?” When Daniel nodded reluctantly, he continued. “No drugs, no sarcasm, no inappropriate jokes or uncomfortable questions, right?”

“A pleasant side effect of ascension,” he grumbled, “would be making you infinitely more bearable.”

“That’s basically everything about me.” He shot Daniel his most charming smile — although he refused to look over, so the effect was somewhat wasted. “ _Wellll_ , I think you’ve gotta like at least  _some_ of those things or you wouldn’t keep coming around.”

Daniel’s head snapped in Kevin’s direction, his eyes wide and his lips parted. (Of it wasn’t for the unsettling cult vibes, the kid would look every bit like a Disney princess.) “That —“

“Admit it,” he needled, tapping the bottle in his hand on the table, “you’d miss me if I ascended.”

“I doubt it. You never  _go away_  — why would ascension change that?”

He decided not to point out that he’d never sought Daniel out once. “What makes you think I’d stick around? Doesn’t everyone disappear?” Wasn’t that, in fact, the real reason he was so damn relieved not to be part of this bullshit?

Kevin had tried, more than once, to delicately ask Sister Hannah what happened after ascension in the few times he stopped zoning out long enough to pay attention to the meetings. He’d always been steered away with a polite but unswayable change of subject. Daniel, though he didn’t seem to understand a whole lot more about all this than he did, was at least a lot worse at maintaining secrecy. “Hey, where’d you guys come from, anyway? S’not like you grew up around here.” It had taken him a few weeks to recognize the little white house the Circle of the Confederacy was using as a church, but it had belonged to one of his old high-school teachers as recently as a year ago (he should know; Mrs. Parsons was one of his infrequent-but-predictable customers).

Daniel glanced up, distracted from his staring war with the cat – Barbra, satisfied with her victory, celebrated by sniffing Daniel’s hand and then darting under Kevin’s chair. “The Elders and their flocks are always traveling,” he said carefully, “to keep finding new members.”

Great, they were back to parroting party lines. Sister Hannah had said essentially the same thing, at the last meeting. “Right, but the place you were last. It had a name.” When Daniel just looked at him, his expression telegraphing the snide “ _obviously_ ” so clearly he might as well have just said it, Kevin sighed, shaking his head and reminding himself that it wasn’t Daniel’s fault that he was a goddamn idiot. “What  _was_ the name?”

“Why do you care?” Kevin didn’t bother replying; sometimes the best thing to do was just wait until Daniel’s curiosity overcame his general difficultness and assholery. And sure enough, after a few quiet moments … “La Veta. There was a school there Sister Hannah worked with.”

He frowned, pushing his chair back and nearly giving his cat a heart attack, if the baleful stare she gave him was any indication. “Why do I know that name?” He’d thrown his sweatshirt over the back of the easy chair before going out to the garden, and he rifled through the pockets for his phone. Across the room he noticed Daniel grimace, but ignored it in favor of Googling.

“Jesus  _fuck.”_

La Veta, Colorado. Population of like a thousand, probably very pretty in one of those “this is a shithole but it has quaint charm to someone who’s just driving through” ways, completely unremarkable.

Except for that one time forty high-school kids dropped dead.

Kevin remembered that story, not only because it was a drama for the old fucks to pick apart in their rocking chairs – one of the great unsolved, after all, no fingerprints except the students’ on the poisoned cups, none of the parents or friends really knew what all those kids were up to, some top-secret Jonestown shit – but because it had forced him to be extra careful with everything he sold. People were paranoid for a long time after that about taking anything from strangers, even their friendly neighborhood drug dealer.

“This … was you?” He needed to call the police. Probably. “This was fucking  _you.”_

“It was an accident,” Daniel added immediately, as though he’d just been waiting for the opportunity to speak. “I wasn’t there – I was too young, wasn’t ready – hadn’t been properly trained like I am here and something went wrong with – with the ascension, there was nothing Sister Hannah could do … she was inconsolable – I,  _I_  had to make sure we got out of town safely, she couldn’t stop crying – it wasn’t on  _purpose!”_

His head was buzzing, fluffy and clouded like Barbra had coughed up a hairball onto his brain. He really had to call the police. He and the police weren’t exactly on good terms, but … this was fucking  _huge_. This was kid-killing huge.

“What happened?” he finally managed, barely able to hear himself through the buzzing.

Daniel paused, chest still heaving from his frantic explanation (confession?), watching Kevin as though to make sure he wasn’t going to panic.

(oh he was  _panicking_ )

After a few beats of silence he relaxed incrementally, settling back against the couch. “I … don’t really know,” he admitted. “Sister Hannah was too upset, she wouldn’t tell me. Even now, if I –” He shook his head. “She says it’s okay, though, this time.”

Kevin’s thoughts were broken, fragments of ideas beating against one another and screaming.

_(she was too upset)_

_(Daniel had to get them out of town)_

_(it was an accident an accident no one could blame them)_

_(no one could blame h e r)_

_(god she was fucking brilliant)_

“An accident.” His lips felt numb. His fingers, still holding his phone but not using it to call the police or text for help or anything useful, numb and disconnected from his body like pale sausages with untrimmed nails.

_(corpse fingers)_

“I think – maybe it had something to do with the ascension formula. There’s a ritual, a drink, and Sister Hannah always says that it’s very important to get it right or the ceremony will be ruined.” He swallowed audibly, looking down at his hands. Hands that were long-fingered and bony and pale, dangling limp between his knees.

_(skeleton hands)_

“Huh.” He had to do something, and his brain was very much not fucking cooperating at the moment. “So, uh. Before that. How long were you in … that. There.” He couldn’t bring himself to say the town’s name, the name that meant only news headlines and dead children.

And Daniel.

It took Daniel a second to piece those shreds of a sentence together. “We lived there for three years. I … didn’t go outside much, though. Only at night, really. I didn’t go to school, and so it was better that nobody knew I was there, so they wouldn’t ask questions.”

The obvious question hung in the air between them

_(why didn’t she let you go to school?)_

but neither of them reached out and took hold of it.

“Before that, my mother and I – I mean, Acolyte Rachel and I – lived in Sister Hannah’s compound. She wasn’t Sister Hannah yet though; she was like me, training with my – with Acolyte Rachel to be an elder.

“But Brother Robert – he was Sister Hannah’s ‘Sister Hannah’ –” Daniel stumbled a bit over that awkward wording, but soldiered on, “decided that Acolyte Rachel wasn’t … meant to be an Elder. She was supposed to ascend instead, and go visit places with the other Acolytes to prepare people for the arrival of an Elder. That’s what she told me. She said that we – that Brother Robert saw something special in me, and that even though she’d have to leave me behind once she ascended, I might someday be the Elder who came to her town, and we’d see each other again. See each other serving the Confederacy together.”

Kevin’s legs were starting to shake – he wondered distantly if this was what fainting felt like – and he took a seat across from Daniel, supporting himself on the arm of the chair like an old man.

(he  _felt_ old, haunted and weary and  _old)_

He’d paused in his story while Kevin made the laborious trip from behind the chair to sitting in it, again poised like a rabbit ready to run. After a moment, when Kevin’s phone remained in his hand with its screen black and dead and useless

(useless like him dead like forty kids)

Daniel continued, talking like he’d never told this story before, like each piece was as new to him as to Kevin. “She had a weak heart. It was Sister Hannah’s first ascension as an Elder and M – Acolyte Rachel wasn’t strong enough, her heart couldn’t hold out. Sister Hannah told me that as soon as she knew what was happening, she sat by Mother and completed the ascension ritual just for her, so she ascended before she died.” His eyes were dry but unfocused, staring at a spot on the carpet with his pupils blown out in the low light. He didn’t seem to notice that he’d slipped up and forgotten to use her cult name. “Sister Hannah didn’t even stay for the celebration with the other Elders. As soon as it happened she came and found me. She told me what had happened and that she’d seen in a vision that I was chosen to be her disciple, that we’d been given an assignment from Brother Robert and that we had to go immediately. There’s no time to waste in service to the Confederacy.”

_(did she cry when she told you?)_

_(did she cry fake tears and make you disappear)_

“Another accident.”

Daniel’s head snapped up at the sound of his voice, and it was like the world snapped back into focus for both of them. Kevin took a deep breath, shoving away the last screaming shreds of his panic –

_(where is this compound is Brother Robert still alive how many acolytes are dead was I supposed to be one of them)_

– and forcing some level of bitter-tasting humor into his voice. “Sister Hannah’s real fuckin’ unlucky, isn’t she? Accidents follow her wherever she goes.”

Even as Daniel flinched, his eyes hardened. “Xemüg tries to interfere with the Confederacy’s work. The Ancient Ones can’t always protect us from the results of this battle.” The tone of his voice was his “stop arguing with me” tone, the one the was disdain mixed with irritation and just the slightest undertone of a deeply unsettling mania – and it was that last one that kept Kevin up at night sometimes, that made him snap his mouth shut and let his visitor be just as crazy as he liked.

Because it was that tone that reminded him that Daniel was crazy. No matter how geeky and harmless he seemed lounging in Kevin’s piece of shit trailer with sweat slicking his hair to his face and smoke in the air around his head, there was something dark and twisted under there, a seed that was just waiting under the surface, hidden probably even from Daniel himself.

And that seed had a mother _fucking_  name. “Will I have a weak heart too, do you think? Or is all this –” he gestured vaguely around them, “– enough? Just another junkie who overdosed or killed himself because he ruined his life with  _impurities_.”

“What on earth are you –”

“Because it can’t be ascension,” Kevin continued, feeling the panic start to push at him again like hands squeezing his skull, “since I’m not a good enough sheep for ascension, right? Good ol’ Sister Jones can’t worry about me not drinking the kool-aid when she’ll have her hands full convincing you that it’s all for the best when all fifteen recovering drunks at their graduation party drop dead.”

Daniel sat up fully, concern sharpening his face. To anyone looking into the trailer from outside, he’d look like the sane one. “You’re not making any –”

“But she knows I’ve heard aaalll about Xemüg!” There were so many things Kevin should be doing, from calling the police to running for his life to grabbing the little switchblade he kept in his pocket at all times. Anything but letting the words fall out of his mouth like they were, wild and uncontrolled in a dangerous slide from his brain to his tongue. “I’ve seen her face! I’ve seen  _your_ face. I know there was a party and I’ll know why there aren’t two platinum-haired corpses – does she make you bleach it, by the way? Is that part of the religion, or do you just want to be like mommy?”

And god, the look on his face at that, like Sister Hannah wouldn’t need to lift a finger to make him disappear, not if he kept talking.

Unfortunately, not knowing when to shut up was one of the many reasons Kevin’s life had taken the nosedive it had. “Hey, this girl from high school works at one of the camps on the lake. Used to be pretty good friends, back before … you know.” And again he waved an arm around them, less controlled this time. “Don’t remember her name, but I see her around. Got big purple eyes, kinda cute, few years younger than me. Not that you can tell – it’s not like I’ve aged pretty,” he added. He felt strangely drunk; it’d been a long time since he’d felt anything resembling this kind of sickening, brain-freezing fear, and he had a suspicion he wasn’t handling it very well. “If you end up seeing her, tell her Dirty Kevin says hi. And that he’s real sorry about all the dead she’s gonna be, but odds are I’ll already be in hell.”

Daniel scrambled to his feet, holding out his hands like Kevin was flinging a gun around. “What are you talking about? I’m not going to hurt you!”

“Oh yeah?” he cried, aware that he needed to drop his voice before one of his neighbors called the cops but unable to translate that information into action. (And fuck, if they called the police it’d save him a phone call, right? Because that was what a sane person would do, and Dirty Kevin was a lot of things but he straight-up fucking  _refused_ to be crazy.) “What if Xemüg tells you to, huh?”

“We don’t  _worship Xemüg_ , so it wouldn’t matter if – that’s not the point!” he snarled, taking a step forward; Kevin immediately sank further into his chair, pressing back against it like the pot-reeking cushions would absorb him. “In the name of the Ancients – why don’t you just see, then? Come to the ceremony and admit that this – all of this – is ludicrous!”

_“Fine!”_

The shout startled them both into silence, and for a few long seconds they just stared at each other, wide-eyed and breathing hard.

_This is an excellent way to get yourself killed, Kev._

He gulped for air, wishing he still had his inhaler from high school. “Fine,” he said again, quieter and surprisingly calm. “Didn’t think they’d let you bring a date, but what the hell. Maybe I can sweet-talk Sister Hannah into making me one of those Acolytes you were talking about.”

His father was absolutely right: he had the brains of a goddamn chipmunk, without any of the self-preservation instinct. But fuck, maybe he could stop a mass homicide, be the town hero. He could use the goodwill, considering the legal trouble he occasionally found himself in. He’d be like some kind of vigilante criminal, like Batman without the money or the costume or the abs.

Who was he kidding?

He’d just signed his death warrant.


	5. The bunny

The next time Daniel appeared, Kevin half-expected to see a knife in his hand. Maybe Sister Hannah hovering over his shoulder, telling him that Xemüg would be proud or something.

But he was alone -- paler than usual, with circles under his eyes that looked smudged on by makeup, but alone.  “You can’t come to the ascension,” he said.

Kevin smirked, leaning against the doorframe. “Nice to see you too, Dan.”

“This isn’t a joke! You aren’t going to the ascension party.” Normally this was the point where he would’ve shoved past Kevin inside, and there was something sad and unnerving about the way he was just hovering outside, glowing brilliant-white in the trailer-dotted wasteland of his front yard, like a diamond ring dropped in the gutter.

“Let me guess, Sister Hannah said no. I’d be too impure and ruin the vibe.” He’d been expecting something like this, and something cold and leaden rolled off his chest. Kevin had had a couple days to think through his spur-of-the-moment dare -- and to realize that he was perhaps just as insane as this merry band of cultists -- and when the alternative was probably being force-fed poison, he was very relieved to be disinvited to the party.

Daniel didn’t react, his eyes dark and bloodshot and unwavering from his own. “You would,” he said, a few seconds too late, like a poorly dubbed movie. “All your questions and your unclean habits -- your unclean  _ mind  _ \-- you ruin  _ everything.  _ I don’t want you there.”

Okay, this was starting to sound like the kind of speech that was usually accompanied by a chainsaw and “the voices in my head made me do it.” Kevin slid his foot back, shifting his weight as subtly as possible to not look like he was running the fuck away. “That’s kinda harsh, don’tcha think?” he asked, only vaguely aware of what he was saying -- infinitely more aware of every twitch and tremor of the (very, very insane) man in front of him.

His fingers fluttered, a movement that would barely have been noticeable if Kevin’s brain wasn’t working so hard it was probably overheating, fans whirring as he tried to take in everything and plan a potential escape -- and oh, devote maybe 2.5% of his attention to the things Daniel was actually  _ saying _ . “Don’t. Just . . .  _ don’t _ , Kevin.”

_ Is that the first time he’s actually used your name? _ the stupid, useless 2.5% of his brain asked unhelpfully.

“Sure, man. Whatever you want me to do. Or not do. Whatever.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, fingering the switchblade hidden there. He was painfully aware of the fact that the Flower Scouts were inside the trailer, trying futilely to get an ancient monster of an air conditioner to work. (He had no idea where it had come from; the girls had just showed up that afternoon, staggering under its weight. For kids loudly opposed to anything resembling work, it was a hell of a lot of effort to go to.) Chances were good they could take care of themselves; he’d seen them scare off giants with machine guns, and Daniel was only 120 pounds of crazy and seemed unarmed. But goddamn it, they were his responsibility.

And like he’d fucking summoned them . . . “ _ Heyyyyyy _ , so Erin has an idea,” Sasha called, sticking her head out of the front door. “It involves science or some shit. Are you using the ice in the freezer for anything?”

“What?” He turned around, forgetting about Daniel for a second. “I’m using it for  _ ice _ , what are you talking about?”

“So like, we can have it?”

“I -- yeah, sure. Go nuts.” She started to disappear back inside and he raised his voice. “Fill the trays back up when you’re done!” 

( _ Christ _ , he’d become his mother.)

He turned back to Daniel, who was watching him with an expression he couldn’t read, but scared him slightly less than the bubbling anger from a few minutes ago. “So . . .” He rocked back on his heels, sucking at his teeth. He wasn’t really good at ending conversations at the best of times. “Sorry I’m not sparkly enough to deserve your crazy-cult.”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed, but he still didn’t quite look mad. His gaze flicked from Kevin to the trailer, where the girls had somehow coaxed enough bars out of the area’s horrible cell coverage to blast Sleepy Peak’s single Top 40 station and were singing along (badly) to it. “No,” he said finally, shaking his head. “You don’t deserve any of it.”

* * *

“They’ve ascended.”

Kevin glanced up; he wasn’t surprised, exactly, by the intrusion — “storming in and declaring something stupid” was a remarkably common way for Daniel to introduce himself — but he did wish it hadn’t happened while he was “gardening” with the Flower Scouts. “Go check on the cookies,” he muttered to them, and while Sasha just stared at him with dark-rimmed eyes, the other two were much easier to persuade, and dragged her away. “What’re you talking about?”

Part of him hoped Daniel’s announcement would end “They’ve ascended, and everything’s fine. Nothing was poisoned, and we all had a good laugh about what a paranoid freak that old Dirty Kevin is.” But the look on his face . . .

“Inside,” Daniel hissed, grabbing Kevin’s wrist and hauling him toward his trailer. “We can’t talk out here.”

“I literally  _ just  _ sent the girls ins — and we’re here.” Rolling his eyes, he tugged Daniel out of the way of Erin, who was balancing a too-large tray of steaming pink cookies. “Looks great. Why don’t you let these cool outside, huh? Take a break and relax in the shade or . . .” It occurred to him that there wasn’t a tree within half a mile of the trailer park. “. . . something.”

“Seriously?” Sasha rolled her eyes. “If you wanna get rid of us, just  _ say. _ ” She glanced up at him and then back to the floor, biting her lip. “Like we wanted to hang in this dump, anyway.”

“No, guys. It’s not like that.” He knelt down, trying to meet the five downcast eyes. “My buddy here’s just really stupid and might’ve done somethin’ that’ll get him arrested, and I don’t want you caught up in that. Be like Mexico all over again, right?”

Sasha looked marginally convinced, which he tended to use as his meter for all three of them, since she had the least amount of stupid going on. “Guess we’ll, like, call Miss Priss, then,” she said dismissively, turning sharply enough that her hair whipped Kevin in the face. “Come on, ladies.”

She paused at the door, turning to eye them over her shoulder. And hell, before he’d met those girls he’d never thought the glare of a prissy little girl could be intimidating, but . . . “Try not to get arrested.” Her eyes flicked up, then down, taking Daniel in before dismissing him with a toss of her head. “Your weird new boyfriend is  _ totally _ not worth it.”

Kevin heard a quiet, outraged noise behind him, but then the trailer door slammed shut with a  _ clank _ . Distracted from his irritation, Daniel burst forward, drawing the curtains and fiddling with the door’s cheap padlocks before whirling on him, a look in his eyes that Kevin couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t the fake “golly gee!” salesman spiel, and it wasn’t religious mania . . . but the few times he’d seen Daniel genuinely angry, it was a controlled, icy sort of rage, not this fire blazing behind his eyes.

For a second they just stared at each other. Then Kevin licked his lips — dry, chapped and dry; what else was new? — cleared his throat, and shoved his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt. “So, uh . . . ascension, huh?”

God, it all felt painfully awkward:  _ Killed any kids lately? _

Not like he had a ton of room to talk, but at least the children under his ill-advised care were still alive.

“You were right,” Daniel said, the words coming out all in a rush like he was afraid he’d be interrupted. Or like he was afraid he’d lose his nerve if he slowed down. He was pacing rapidly the length of the trailer, his steps hard enough to slightly rattle the entire camper. “Y-you — all of it — you were right about all of it. It doesn’t make any . . .” He sighed, almost a groan really, and raked his hands through his hair. His fingers drew neat furrows, the fluffy poof of his bangs sproinging back up immediately. “It was all fake,” he murmured finally. “There is no ascension. They made it all up.”

Kevin was aware that his trailer-guest was in the middle of a major existential crisis, but he had customers, and those cookies sold best when fresh out of the oven . . . “Right. Great. Uh, congratulations on all the . . . not being crazy, I guess.”

“It’s gone,” he whispered. His pacing slowed, and for a moment he just stared down at his hands. (Kevin leaned in closer, but they looked like the same pale, well-manicured skeleton hands to him.) “It’s all gone.” Daniel’s head snapped up, his eyes focusing on Kevin with his typical laserlike intensity. But it didn’t feel predatory for once. No, this look was decidedly  _ desperate _ . 

Desperate and hollow, lost hopelessness nestled in the deep, dark lines of his face. And he looked even more like a corpse than usual, skin the color of moon-drenched sand and the cheap fluorescent lights catching in the finger-combed waves of his hair.

Dirty Kevin was no poet, but something flashed across his mind anyway —

( _ that man is an island and there’s madness lapping at the shore _ )

— that might’ve been a half-remembered snippet of something he’d read in high school, or something from a dream, or something his brain had conjured up when he was blitzed out of his mind. Whatever it was, it made his skin prickle and go cold.

“What’s all gone, Daniel?”

“The Circle —” He shook his head abruptly, furiously. “The — the  _ cult _ ,” he spat. “There was — a ceremony. An ascension party. I . . . mixed up the drinks. Just to be sure.”

_ (“Don’t you dare.”) _

He didn’t know what to say, but Daniel didn’t seem to need a response. Resuming his pacing, he rubbed his chin with a rough motion, like wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “They . . . ascended. I ascended them.”

His mouth twisted into a cruel smirk, and Kevin had seen that mocking contempt before but never this bitter, and never directed  _ inward _ .

“No — I  _ killed  _ them.”

_ (“I don’t want you there.”) _

Kevin took an unsteady breath — the first, it felt like, in hours. His fingers were only shaking slightly as he reached for Daniel’s shoulder, and it was almost possible to convince himself it was a holdover from that one bad batch of cookies. “Hey, man, it’s okay —”

(of course it wasn’t okay. Even Kevin wasn’t morally degraded enough to think any of this was  _ okay _ )

“I  _ murdered  _ them. All of them.” His hands clenched into fists, and while he didn’t jerk away from Kevin’s touch, the vicious look on his face was almost enough to make him pull back himself. “The leaders . . . if they’d all dropped dead except me — if the —  _ initiates  _ hadn’t ‘ascended’ too, they would’ve panicked. Would’ve — called the police.”

Daniel shook his head, his eyes boring into Kevin’s forehead but his gaze a million miles away. Or maybe just a few, just up the road and across an old railyard to a small white house.

A small white house full of bodies.

Calling the police wasn’t sounding like such a bad idea . . .

“There wasn’t enough.”

Kevin jumped; Daniel had been quiet for so long, them both zoning out for who knew how many minutes, that the sound of his voice was startling, a gunshot in the still close air.

He kept talking, not noticing or ignoring the twitch of the hand on his shoulder — still, for some  _ very stupid reason _ , on his shoulder. “Whatever was in the drinks was enough to kill . . . half the people. Maybe a little more. Mixing all the drinks together with the Elders’ — it wasn’t enough. The poison. It . . . took longer. It took forever.”

Daniel blinked, something like clarity returning to his eyes for a second. He smiled, and it wasn’t the creepy neck-cracking smile that was familiar and, oddly, almost comforting by this point, but a smile that trembled along its edges, a smile shrouded in darkness and shaking from the effort not to collapse into a scream.

Once, Kevin had an ex-girlfriend who said she couldn’t stand to look at him.  _ “Your smile is haunted,”  _ she’d said, standing in the hallway of their apartment — back when he could still afford an apartment. Back when it was still smart to sell out of an apartment.  _ “You have the ghosts of the people you’ve ruined in your eyes.” _

He was pretty sure that was complete bullshit, but if any smile had ever been haunted it was this one.

“I had to keep them from screaming,” he said, his voice still soft and breathy and his smile still more than a little unhinged. He let his neck fall to the other side with a sickening crack. “What else could I do?”

Dirty Kevin wasn’t aware of opening his mouth, of taking a deep breath. Of yelling and yelling like his lungs were about to burst.

He wasn’t aware of much of anything except a pair of bright, bright eyes and a poisonous smile.

Then, of nothing at all.

* * *

The first thing that came back to Kevin was the smell of cookies.

Then, a furious beeping.

“For fuck’s sake, don’t just  _ stand  _ there! You’re the, like, adult!”

“I’ve never seen one of these in my life!”

That was when he smelled smoke and bolted upright. “Whasgoinon?”

Sasha glanced over, crossing her arms over her chest. “Finally. You’re awake.” 

“The trailer’s on fire,” Tabii added helpfully, standing on her tiptoes to see Kevin’s bed from the kitchen; it was really all one big ugly room with a toilet the size of a shoebox, but there were two Flower Scouts and and lot of smoke blocking her view, not to mention . . .

_ “Dan?” _

Daniel coughed, covering his mouth with his arm and stepping away from the oven. “First deal with the beeping.”

Erin tossed her hair, revealing for a split second her one orange eye. “Or, like, the fire.”

Kevin stumbled out of bed, steadying himself against the wall, and hurried over to the kitchen. The damage was minimal, just some very on-fire cookies, and he tried not to think about how much money was smoking up his trailer. “Open the windows,” he said, taking the flaming tray from Tabii, nearly dropping it because he wasn’t wearing oven mitts, and finally letting it crash into the overfilled sink and running the faucet. “None of you know how to turn the alarm off, do you?”

Erin and Tabii shook their heads, while Daniel scoffed and looked away and Sasha snapped, “What do  _ you  _ think?”

Neither did he. “Google it,” he ordered, searching his pants pockets for his phone before realizing someone had put him in pajamas. Another terrible thing to deal with later. Finding it on his bedside table, he considered Daniel for a moment before tossing it to Erin. After an embarrassingly long time of her valley-girl-style coaching, he managed to shut the fucking thing off and collapsed into his armchair, nearly landing on Barbra. As she rubbed her face on his legs and then jumped back up into his lap, he ran a hand over his face, exhausted but far from sleepy, and turned toward his very odd guests. “What are any of you doing here?”

“You’ve been asleep for two days,” Erin said, handing him his phone. 

“We told Miss Priss we’re doing extended community service! We even went shopping and everything!” Tabii added.

“Oh, yeah.” Sasha tugged a very familiar piece of plastic from a bag around her wrist and flicked it toward him. “This thing is, like,  _ way  _ out of money.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. If he’d been awake he could’ve told them he hadn’t used a credit card in months. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Nuh-uh, Tabii found some cash in your mattress.” She wrinkled her nose and gave him the most witheringly judgemental stare he’d ever received from a twelve-year-old. “You know, with everything  _ else  _ you’ve got under there.”

“Hey, that shit’s private! And nobody asked you to go snooping in my stuff!” He heard a soft dismissive noise from the other side of the room and pointedly ignored it, keeping his attention on the girls. “You’re too young to know what those are, anyway.”

Tabii brightened. “I’m not! My sister told me --”

“Your sister’s wrong about everything, Tabii,” Erin interrupted.

“Yeah, and what’s with magazines, anyway? I mean, you know the internet exists, right? You’re not, like,  _ that _ old.”

He opened his mouth to answer that, but his brain caught back up with him. “We’re not having this conversation. Give me back my money!” (So he was a little old-fashioned. There were worse things to be.)

Sasha returned his battered money clip -- which was considerably thinner than he remembered seeing it last -- and the girls sat down around his kitchen table; even if they hadn’t eyed Kevin’s ratty fur-covered couch like it was made of rancid cheese, Daniel had flopped onto it before they could’ve taken a seat anyway. (At least some things didn’t change.) “ _ Anywayyyyy,  _ he keeps trying to make us leave --” she jerked her head in Daniel’s direction, hair whipping like a flag, “-- but he won’t leave the house so like, what was he gonna do when you ran out of food?”

“Besides, we thought he might try to kill you like he did all those weird church people!” Tabii said, seemingly completely oblivious to the warning looks the other girls were giving her, or how the air chilled a few degrees as she spoke.

There was a long, tense moment of silence. “Right,” Sasha finally said. “Anyway, we’re gonna, like, go. Since you’re awake now and stuff.” She crossed the room and plucked the money clip from his hand, taking a $20 bill. “For the Uber.”

“We also totally messed around with your phone just totally because we’re bored,” Erin added, leaning over the arm of the chair to prod at his screen. “So like, for totally no reason the police are on speed-dial now? Just like, y’know, because.”

“Have a good night!” Tabii continued to not quite grasp the trailer’s atmosphere, and something appallingly close to affection squeezed his chest. She leaned in close, cupping her hand around her mouth and his ear. “Be careful, Mr. Kevin. My sister says even if you’re gay you can like still get pregnant --”

“ _ Thank you _ , sweetheart,” he cut her off too-loudly from trying not to laugh, putting his hand over her face and shoving her away. “Get back home before you get in trouble.” He watched them leave with exaggerated interest and immediately dropped his head in one hand, telling himself it wasn’t stupid for his face to feel warm because his trailer had very recently been on fire.

It was quiet for a few moments, and Kevin hoped for a second that Daniel would shut up long enough to let him think for a minute or two. He just . . . needed to wrap his mind around everything. The last thing he remembered was Daniel confessing to  _ mass fucking homicide _ , then apparently he’d been alone with the Flower Scouts for a few days and why had he been hanging around here for a few days? He should be miles away, or in jail, or hell maybe dead in a ditch if this cult was as insane as it’d always seemed, so what in the flying fuck --

There was a quiet snort.  _ “Sweetheart?” _

Kevin sighed.

Goddamnit.

He rolled his eyes, lifting his head. “It’s been a weird week,” he began. “Could you just --”

For the first time, he really got a good look at Daniel. 

The kid was a fucking  _ mess _ .

Not by Kevin’s standards, to be sure. His hair was still impeccably styled -- using what kind of product, Kevin had no idea -- and his jeans were as gleamingly white and unwrinkled as ever. But he must’ve borrowed clothes, because the black 2003 Warped Tour T-shirt had definitely come from the back of Kevin’s closet, and so had the cream cardigan he’d shrugged on over it (a gift from his grandmother. Of course Daniel had been drawn to it), and everything was dusted with a thin layer of white cat fur.

Not that his wardrobe was the most startling thing about his appearance.

Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “What are you looking at?”

Kevin’s lips twitched, and he quickly covered his mouth with one hand, glancing over at Barbra before his eyes were inevitably drawn back to Daniel. “Nothing.”

He dragged the wrist of the cardigan across his cheek, like he could wipe away the too-dark stubble. “Stop staring. I hate it, okay? Stop  _ looking  _ at it.”

Kevin nodded slowly, still trying not to laugh. “No, man, it’s . . . really something.” Daniel huffed angrily and glared at the wall while Kevin tried to get ahold of himself, the silence settling into something surprisingly comfortable, like this was just another inexplicable visit. When he thought he could speak again, he took a deep breath and said, “So. The, uh. Hair.”

Daniel didn’t say anything, just eyed him suspiciously.

“Couldn’t talk the girls into buying you some bleach, huh?”

He ran a hand self-consciously through his hair, tugging at where the light brown roots suddenly blazed into platinum blonde. “They don’t like the color,” he muttered.

Kevin did laugh then, shaking his head and enjoying the way a blush flared across Daniel’s cheeks and ears. “Run a tight ship, don’t they?” he said, glancing around the trailer and noticing for the first time how nice it was. Not neater, exactly -- he was actually quite good at keeping things tidy; it was one of the only ways to make a shithole look less like a shithole -- but there were little homey touches here and there: a beer bottle rescued from the garbage and repurposed as a vase, little sprigs of wildflowers scattered throughout the place like tiny religious offerings. “Surprised they didn’t make you shave.”

If possible, Daniel wound even tighter. “You’re out of razors,” he said sullenly. “And in this ridiculous town, children can’t buy them.”

“Makes me wonder why you’re still  _ in  _ this ridiculous town.”

And like that, the familiar atmosphere snapped. Daniel sat up straighter, his entire body tensing like he might bolt. Kevin closed his fingers around the phone in his pocket, taking comfort in the reminder that he had the police on speed-dial.

Well, they were here. Might as well get this over with before he was murdered in his sleep. “Why are you here, anyway? You could be in fucking Cabo right now or something.”

Daniel fidgeted, his gaze on his knees. “There’s nowhere for me to go,” he admitted after a moment. “I can hardly return h -- to the Circle, even if I wanted to.” His face twisted in a bitter mixture of distaste and grief, and Kevin remembered with a start that this was kind of . . . really traumatizing. He’d never done the whole religion thing, but he knew what it was like to have a home suddenly stop being home.

Of course, he didn’t know what it was like to be wanted for mass murder. “But they know where you are, right? You’ve gotta be, like, Xemüg’s Most Wanted now.” Daniel stared at him blankly, and the exhausting task of getting him caught up on something like twenty-five years of pop culture settled over Kevin like a blanket. “Aren’t they gonna come find you? Maybe give you a nice cold glass of poison?”

“What was I supposed to do?” he demanded, putting his hands on his knees and leaning forward, like he was considering getting up.

Kevin shrugged, trying to remain as casual as possible. “Off the top of my head . . . drive the twenty or so miles to the nearest airport, get a one-way ticket to the border, escape into Mexico, dye your hair, and start a low-profile-but-reasonably-lucrative business doing  _ literally anything _ besides killing kids.”

The look on Daniel’s face was like he’d accidentally swallowed a frog.

“None of that occurred to you, huh?”

He dropped his head in one hand with a groan. “Nothing makes  _ sense _ anymore.”

“Yeah, not like space toxins and alien wars and all that other totally reasonable cult shit.”

“It had  _ rules! _ ” he snapped, and Kevin flinched. Surprise flickered across Daniel’s face, and for the briefest second something like guilt. Then he settled back against the couch, his expression once again hovering between annoyed and disdainful. “Not like you would get it. You’ve never cared about rules.”

Kevin considered correcting him -- he  _ did  _ have rules, thankyouverymuch, and he stuck by them. The Flower Scouts had never had so much as a crumb of their own supply, had they? -- but decided it wasn’t worth the argument. Not when he was still wrapping his head around the fact that he’d apparently been harboring a felon for the past two days, quite literally unconsciously. “So what’re you gonna do now?” he finally asked, breaking the silence. “That whole Cabo thing is probably out, since I assume your face is all over the news by now. Cops been by yet?” Someone had to have noticed him hanging around; this park was half filled with gossipy old ladies, and Daniel didn’t exactly blend in as much as blindingly draw attention.

Daniel shook his head, looking cowed. Like maybe he’d finally realized what a fucking bad situation he was in.

_ Good _ .

Kevin should just call the cops. If Daniel had run for it, if he tried to make a run for it now, he would’ve been happy to protest innocence and give the kid a fighting chance. But if he was too goddamn stupid to even run . . . Christ, he was like a bunny staring down headlights. No survival skills at all.

A bunny with a knife in its teeth.

Kevin ran a hand through his hair, puffing out his cheeks and exhaling loudly. Leaving his phone on the arm of the couch, he wandered over to the kitchen, shuffling through his cabinets to see what he had left in the way of cookie supplies.

(The shelves were filled with food he was pretty sure had never entered his house before: fancy fruits and spices and  _ quinoa _ , whatever that was. He wasn’t sure whether to smile or wince, looking around at his now very-expensively-stocked kitchen. He was never letting those girls near his cash again, comatose or not.)

“You know anything about cooking?” He cut himself off with a dismissive snort. “Nah, no way I’m letting you anywhere near food. Last thing I need is the whole town dropping dead.” Ignoring the wide-eyed stare he could feel boring into his back, he crouched down in front of the sink, opening a drawer and tugging out a box. “You can’t leave here until we do something about your . . . whole . . . situation,” he continued, waving one hand in Daniel’s general direction. “But I’ve been meaning to start an indoor garden. Friend set me up with a mushroom kit, and --” he shook the box at Daniel for emphasis, “now it’s your project.”

“And what makes you think I want to help you with this . . .  _ business _ ?” Kevin jumped; he hadn’t noticed Daniel’s approach until he was practically hovering over him. Which just brought to mind all sorts of murdery mental images.

Still, he wasn’t going to let himself be bothered.  _ Bunny with a knife _ , he reminded himself, putting his hands on his knees and pushing himself to his feet. “Nice sneer. Very Snape,” he said, then sighed at Daniel’s confused frown. “Fine, I’ll go to the library, catch you up on the last couple centuries. Anyway, you’ll do it because one,” he held up one finger in Daniel’s face, “you don’t want me to rat you out to the police and I am seriously sticking my neck out for you, so don’t be an ungrateful prick. And two, because you’re not gonna be able to leave this tin can for at least a couple months while shit settles down, and you will be  _ bored as shit _ .” He shoved the kit into Daniel’s hands, stepping away to . . . well, to do nothing, but it was a good line to walk away on.

And if he also needed a little bit of space between himself and the reformed cultist killing machine, that was only common sense.

“Why are you doing this?” Kevin could count on one hand the number of times Daniel’s voice had approached anything near vulnerable, and something about the way he spoke, through gritted teeth like he was trying to bite back the question but the words clawed out of him anyway, was more pathetic than any frustration or uncertainty or even panic.

_ Because I’m a sucker for bunnies.  _ “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Dan,” he said instead. “I could use some help running my bountiful drug empire, and you could use a place to lie low.” He half turned back, unable to resist a slight smirk. “Simple as that.”

“Nothing about this is simple,” Daniel muttered. He was clutching the mushroom kit to his chest, and spoke down at it.

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed, returning to his chair and plopping down into it. He’d received a text from Sasha, the only one who had a phone and who’d taken the initiative to add herself to his contacts within five minutes of meeting him:  _ ‘still alive?’  _ “Welcome to Earth, spaceman.”

Daniel’s head snapped up, his mouth opening to make an angry retort, but after a second he closed it, his expression softening almost imperceptibly. He turned and set the mushroom kit next to the sink and turned on the faucet, focusing his attention on the burned cookie tray.

Kevin watched him for a minute, trying to figure out if the slight upturn of his lips was a trick of the light. Finally giving up, he opened up Sasha’s message and tapped out a quick reply:

_ ‘So far.’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it. I woobified Daniel. I _literally compared him to a bunny_ and this is my least favorite thing about myself.
> 
> But fuck it. If anyone can handle this monster of a man (who is very OOC but shhh let's ignore that it's an AU), it's Dirty Kevin. The man who has faced down Mexican cartels and preteen girls and middle-aged women who need their fix. A twinkie with emotional damage is easy as making cookies.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this fic!


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